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We Love You Toby

Since it is a pretty sad subject and still so surreal.
But Toby was my dog for 14 years.
I can't not write about this.

We've had Toby since I was in 4th or 5th grade!
He was an old dog, about 70 in dog years.

Toby has been through so much with us in life.

We rescued Toby form the Utah Humane Society.
In a way, we saved him.

I think rescuing dogs from animal shelters is
the greatest thing you could ever do!

Toby was such a great protector.

He wasn't a fan of kids, but with me and Shawna, He loved us so much.

He let us pull, tug and dress him up when we were little :)
He was a good dog.

We taught him tricks galore, like shake, sit, lay, high five,
rollover, jump, obstacle courses, etc.
He was so smart!

He was like a soft, fluffy teddy bear.

I think he had a hard time when both Shawna and I got married
and moved out. There was no one now that would be coming
home from school around 2 pm to hang out with.

I feel bad for that.

About 5 or 6 months ago, Toby was walking across some tile in
the house, and slipped, causing him to tear his ACL.

When a dog this old, tears his ACL, surgery is not the best thing,
since they may not always recover.

We gave Toby pain pills and just kept on eye on him to make sure
he would not be running and putting pressure on his hurt leg.

Eventually, it seemed to heal by itself.

Every week he was able to put more and more pressure on it.

We began taking him to parks and on walks.
And although he wasn't able to go as far as he used to
he was able to walk a bit and have fun sniffing things outside.

About a few months later, my mom took him
to a park for a walk.

Toby was great when he wasn't on a leash.
Never wandered to far out of sight.

As he was walking and sniffing around, a couple dogs,
chained up to backyard started barking and startled Toby.
He ran a little and tripped in a hole in the grass.
My mom siad he started crying and she had to carry him back to car.

When she got him home, she gave him some pain pills
and noticed that he did something to his other leg.

This can sometimes happen, when the are putting pressure
on the good leg instead of the hurt one. Causing the other leg
to become less stable and more fragile. It didn't help either that he
was older and possibly had arthritis.

Weeks went on and Toby was not doing so well.
He could only take shorts steps before he had to sit down.
Getting back up to walk, you could see the pain in his eyes,
the pressure he was putting on his two front legs was seeming to
be unbearable.

Toby has ALWAYS been a great house trained dog!
Really, he could hold it for hours on end!
And if he absolutley couldn't hold it anymore, he
would go into a tiled area and do his business.
He was like the smartest dog ever!
It was crazy.

But now, he was starting to lose control of his bladder.

The old age and the injuries had taken their toll.

A couple Saturdays ago, we decided it was time to put him down.

We felt guilty for letting him live this way.
As bad as it sounds we were hoping he would go by himself.
Making the decision to put him down was the hardest thing we've ever had to do.

I cried a lot on the weeks leading up to it.
I prayed for him, asking my Heavenly Father if this was the right thing to do.

We did not want to just take him somewhere, like the pound or vet
and hand him over. Toby hated the vet and would shake uncontrollably
when we left him with strangers.

My mom had found a vet that actually comes to your home and does it there.

The lady that came to do it was so nice and gentle.
She had such an amazing energy and spirit.

That day was so hard for me.

I remember all day thinking of how surreal it felt, it just didn't feel real.
Even before the vet came over and I was there with Toby and my mom,
I still didn't believe it.

It wasn't until she knocked at the door that I completely lost control of
all my emotions.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

I couldn't stop crying.

Everytime I look at Toby, I would cry harder.

After everything was said and done, I didn't want to bury him.
It just didn't seem real, liek he was gone.

I've never really had anyone close to me die.
I've never gone through that before.

I've never been the type to be scared of death.
I always have felt that dying would be so much easier than living.
Going to a paradise and having no worries at all, how could that be bad?

But seeing Toby laying there, just a body and no soul.
All my fears of death had just left.
I couldn't help but think of where he was.

I can't even find the words to describe how I felt.
I prayed that night, asking Heavenly Father to watch over Toby,
to make sure he's happy and being nice to other dogs :)

I know it may seem silly to be this distraught over a dog, but
he was more than a dog. He was our family. And we loved him
like that.